Jonathan Leaning, Author at Grassroots International

Without a doubt, 2017 brought tremendous challenges to people around the world – and also witnessed amazing feats of resilience, resistance and resolve. Together with our global partners and committed US-based supporters, Grassroots International celebrates many remarkable accomplishments.

We reject the deceitful and arrogant position of the US government which ignores the clamor of the Honduran people for democracy and the ongoing deadly violence by the Honduran government against the people.

In this short video, you can hear the words of three important leaders from Honduras speaking about the situation facing Indigenous peoples and their environments in Honduras: Berta Cáceres (via recorded video), renowned Indigenous rights and environmental leader who was assassinated last year; Miriam Miranda, the well-known Garifuna (Afro-Honduran) leader and advocate; and Bertha Z. Cáceres, daughter of Berta who is herself an outspoken advocate for indigenous and environmental justice.

With the generous support of our donors, Grassroots International feels honored to have bolstered hands-on solutions to some of the most critical challenges we face: hunger, violations of human rights, climate change and economic disparity. At this moment, we take a moment to applaud some of the exceptional achievements from the past year.

Homes washed away…cars tossed around like they were toys…people swept up in the torrent…the once verdant countryside leveled and coated in thick clay-colored sludge. The cacophony of crumbling debris and rushing water were the only warning received by the 2,000-plus people living in Brazil’s Rio Doce Valley when the dams burst. Dozens of people died and hundreds of families were left homeless.

November 5, 2015 will be remembered as a day where the blind pursuit of profit crushed people in its wake.

Grassroots International has the privilege of working with some very courageous women working on the frontlines of human rights defense. One such woman is Yasmín López, a national coordinator for the Council for the Integral Development of the Peasant Woman (CODIMCA). A partner of Grassroots International, CODIMCA is the lead organization for the Women’s Regional Commission of La Vía Campesina–Central America, and one of the first women-led peasant organizations formed in Honduras with the explicit objective of reclaiming women’s land rights.

Grassroots partner, the Popular Peasant Movement (MCP), recently won renewed funding by the Brazilian state of Goiás to build and renovate 1,000 homes for small farming families. For the MCP, this marks a major milestone for advancing farming family rights and recognition by the state of the crucial role that small farmers play in society.

The signing of the ‘My House, My Life’ agreement on April 5th in the state capital, Goiânia, was attended by members of the MCP, the Governor of the State of Goiás, Marconi Perillo, and representatives from the federal government and state financial institutions.

In a major move against Monsanto and GMOs that will undoubtedly have implications rippling across Africa, Burkina Faso has decided to abandon GM cotton. Tellingly, Burkinabe cotton-growing companies are also demanding that Monsanto compensate them USD 280 million for the crop losses incurred due to declines in cotton quality over the last 5 years. The following article by GMWatch.org explains:

Burkina Faso abandons GM Bt cotton

The country’s exit from Bt cotton cultivation may have implications for Africa’s stance on GM crops in general, says a new briefing by GM Watch reporter Claire Robinson

Together with our supporters, during 2015 Grassroots International championed hands-on solutions to some of the most pressing challenges we face: hunger, violations of human rights, climate justice and economic disparity. At this moment, we stop to celebrate some of the remarkable achievements from the last year.

Grassroots International’s global partner, La Via Campesina, is one of the key global social movements addressing the root causes of climate disruption around the world, particularly from an agricultural perspective. They are currently in Paris participating in the alternative People’s Climate Summit and other associated strategizing activities. The following is a piece they produced exposing the so-called ‘climate smart’ agriculture solutions that multinationals are proposing as solutions to climate change.

The United States occupation of Haiti, enforced by the U.S. Marines, officially began on July 28, 1915 after six months of military engagement ostensibly to protect their citizens from civil unrest at the time, and lasted until 1934. The occupation marked the end of Haiti’s long period of independence dating from the 1804 Haitian revolution against the French colonizers.

Grassroots International is hard at work across the U.S. and beyond putting issues such as climate justice, food sovereignty, resource rights, Palestine, women’s leadership—even when they are controversial or unpopular—into the limelight.

Spreading the word is a key strategy we use to advance resource rights, particularly when it comes to connecting our Global South partners to sources of solidarity, funding and support, and making changes in policies here in the U.S. We do more than give grants; we build solidarity right here in the U.S. for our partners and their social movements. It is also a key reason why funders and donors choose Grassroots International as a vehicle to support them.

The long-standing Afro-Brazilian, or Quilombola, village of Tambor, Amazonia received a nasty surprise last year. A federal judge sent notice, from his office 3,600 kilometers away in Brazil’s capital, to these descendants of fugitive slaves that their village wasn’t actually Quilombola, and therefore the entire village needed to be evicted.

This was in spite of the fact that the Quilombola families have lived and raised their families there for over 100 years. They had also applied for and secured official recognition and status as a protected Quilombola village, which gave them the legal right to the territory on which the village stands.

The Women’s Empowerment and Food Sovereignty Project in Palestine, sponsored by Grassroots International and implemented with our Palestinian partner the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, works to bring practical, locally controlled food projects to various communities in the West Bank.